1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to water chlorinators. More specifically, the invention relates to water chlorinators suitable for use in poultry feeding operations.
2. Related Art
Domestic poultry, particularly chickens and turkeys, required their water to be chlorinated, in order to prevent the growth of bacteria due to contaminants such as feed and droppings. Prior art poultry chlorinators, and particularly those in commercial use, employ liquid chlorine. However, liquid chlorine compounds are particularly corrosive to all metals except stainless steel, thus requiring the use of expensive stainless steel pipes in the chlorinator.
Dry chlorine compounds are more stable than liquid chlorine compounds, and are not as corrosive. Many swimming pool chlorinators use dry chlorine compounds. However, the dry chlorine compounds used for chlorinating swimming pools (e.g., trichloro-S-triazinetrione, also known as "Tri-Chlor"), are not approved for sanitizing drinking water. Dry chlorine compounds suitable for sanitizing drinking water (e.g., calcium hypochlorite) dissolve at different rates than the dry chlorine compounds used for chlorinating swimming pools. Also, dry chlorine compounds suitable for sanitizing drinking water tend to form scale, whereas those used in swimming pools do not.
Also, the concentration of chlorine in swimming pools (approximately 1.0 to 1.5 ppm) may be different from the concentration of chlorine in poultry drinking water (0.5 ppm to 5.0 ppm, depending upon the type of poultry and its age, as well as the preference of the grower). Different chlorine compounds dissolve at different rates to provide different concentrations. The specific type of chlorine compound to be used in a chlorinator therefore affects the design of the chlorinator. Swimming pool chlorinators are not structurally equipped to provide the variation or range in dilution required of poultry chlorinators, nor are they necessarily configured to permit the removal of scale. Therefore, pool chlorinators are not structurally suited for use in connection with a poultry watering system.
Further, most swimming pool chlorinators are configured for water flow at a very high rate (10 to 50 gallons/minute) at low pressure, whereas poultry chlorinators typically provide a very low flow rate of only 50 to 3500 gallons/day. For this reason also, swimming pool chlorinators are not structurally suitable for use in poultry watering systems.
It is the solution of these and other problems to which the present invention is directed.